Nintendo Switch Jailbreak Teased By Developer

Nintendo’s brand new Switch gaming console has only been publicly available, but its already garnering a lot of attention, both from welcome, and presumably unwelcome sources.

Consumers are flocking in their droves to take ownership of the console in order to play beautiful games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it seems that the console has also attracted attention from security researchers and hackers looking to see exactly what can be done with the console, and if it can be liberated from a security perspective. And it looks like it can, with relative ease, as proved already by Luca Todesco.

With Apple’s modern iOS devices running iOS 10 cracked, thanks to the release of yalu102, it seems that Todesco, and other developers, have been looking for a new challenge.

As if by magic, Nintendo has stepped up to the plate with the release of the Switch, which not only provides a brand new piece of kit for gamers to sink their teeth into, but also for hackers to investigate and see what is actually possible. A tweet by Todesco with the text “that’s just how it does”, is accompanied by a picture of a Nintendo Switch after successfully running his jbme exploit.

Given the fact that the Switch is literally eight days old, there is definitely no jailbreak or homebrew community already set up for this hardware. With that in mind, it basically means that in the current state having access doesn’t specifically allow the average owner of the Switch to do a great deal, but it does show what is actually possible with this current version of the Switch hardware and firmware, and it could potentially open up the door for developers to seriously consider building non-official software, tweaks, and experiences for Nintendo’s latest hardware.

Of course, Nintendo wouldn’t like that, but if it actually happened it would likely result in sales of the Switch hardware increasing.

There’s no additional information on the Switch jailbreak provided at the moment other than the fact that it was an existing exploit that was used “basically untouched” with the removal of specific iOS assumptions. With Todesco’s focus now on Switch, we imagine that there will be more to come from this one.

Never releases anything? He released the last and only jailbreak for iOS 10.

David N

Stop wasting time and update the jailbreak.

Alu Zeros

Nice, iOS jailbreak untethered would before awesome. Cydia needs a rehaul to something like apple’s own App Store. More developers needs to come out with tweaks and apps for cydia. I only say this because feels like iOS jailbreaking hasn’t been what it used to be.

eric messenger

He has access to the browser and apis and system calls, still need a kernel exploit. Has nothing to do with iOS and everything to do with webkit. Too bad he released it now it be patched in weeks….

SmoothMcBeats

Coming in 2019…

Mozbius

Indeed he did. That was an exception that we should not expect to happen again. Look at his previous work and look what he said word for word in regard of releases… I bet everyone was taken by surprise when he actually released Yalu!

It may have been an exception in term of him releasing a tool but he has made contributions before to other JB teams. Pangu have credited him with help as well. He doesn’t have an obligation to release anything,if you have used Pangu/Yalu you should be grateful.

JEmlay

Hopefully it’s a foot in the door to running homebew. Want me some AR!!!!

Mozbius

I totally agree that he has not obligation to release anything. Don’t get me wrong I have Pangu/Yalu and I am all heartedly grateful at 100%.

But I have a question for you… If you find an exploit in a device and then make a video showing that you manage to run your code on said device but keep to yourself how you have done it, how do you call that? In my book that is bragging. If he wants to brag then good for him.

But those who hope for something to come out from his work should therefore not hold there breath cause at the end of the day that dev is more about bragging/showing off then releasing/sharing.

And yes he did get credited for work done to help other groups and there’s no denying that fact. But lets be honest… Compare those anecdotal moments of sharing/helping with his roadmap and tell me that he is all about pushing/contributing to the community. Can he be compared to MuscleNerd, Geohot, posixninja, comex, planetbeingand the list goes on for his wiliingness to work to “PUSH” ? Absolutely not.

So yeah… If an exploit is revealed to have been found by Lucas Todesco don’t hold your breath cause based on his track record you will most likely never be able to make any use of it.